brand awareness

i am the brand aware it’s dying
i wear my jacket of ash and burn
the more intensely     insulated
oxidizing at the rate
of a sun yearning for the mantel urn
i am an ember in a forest all afire

i wear my jacket of ash and burn
my heart’s a furnace and my flame a dance
of devilish repetition in the faces and eyes
arranged around a campfire     saucers     glazed
as all about us wildfire rages     branches
crack shatter     scattering embers run

the more intently     insulated
under a rug of last year’s leaves and needles
i am the flame that burns in everything
that dies and is consumed as fuel again
i am the beast that feeds continuously
i am the fuel consumed and consummated

oxidizing in a rush and at a rate
calibrated to procreate     as serpents
copulate in writhing orgy pits
and picture this     ouroboros bites
the tail that feeds him     infinities spent
in self-consumption     you and i are that

of a sun yearning for the mantelpiece
what’s your hurry     o mother     worm of the world
must all things yearn so to be reborn
is there a secret to self-reconstitution
i should know about     it’s nothing untoward
i trust none are excluded from the sacrifice

i am an ember dying in a forest full of fire
a flake     a fiber in a field of blanket ash
decarbonated     milked of my intensity
robbed of all the oxygen in the vicinity 
of the solar plexus and the fireplace
i yearn to crack/shatter to the forest floor